The Show
by Dollypony
Summary: A dream prompts Sydney to talk to Irina. Sydney teaches Vaughn how to ride a horse.


Title: The Show  
  
Author: Lauren Alexa Hamlin  
  
Summary: A dream prompts Sydney to talk to Irina. Sydney teaches Vaughn how to ride a horse.  
  
Dedication: Aiosa Acres you give me strength to keep living every day: yeah Amelia 'Bedila, Jamie Ann Segundo Wasdenez, and Whip Me, and Ms. Vicky, that does mean ya'll amongst other people Smelly Melli, Mega Phone. Why am I the only one without a nickname?  
  
Feedback: I'll pay you. Just Kidding. Please do send, though. DollyponyH@aol.com  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Alias. Whadaya know you never thought that for a moment did you, am I right?  
  
Rating: PG  
  
I see the crowd along the fence. I am searching. Searching for my father. Could he have actually come? I look, yet I do not see him.  
  
"Number 47 on deck, number 32 in the hole, and number 20 in the ring." The announcer says.  
  
Number 47, that's me. That's always been me, ever since my first show. I was riding in the leadline class. My trainer, Crystal, handed me my number and I could only grumble, "47 is an ugly number." I came out of that class with a first place. 47 had become my lucky number.  
  
Now, seven years later I search the crowd again.  
  
"Sydney, it's useless. He doesn't approve of anything you do. Especially, riding horses."  
  
The announcer cut into my already crowded mind. "4 jump faults, no time faults for number 20. Number 47 is up."  
  
Crystal looks up and smiles at me. "You go kick ass girl."  
  
I take a deep breath and enter the ring. I do my courtesy circle and begin. Jump one is perfect. Jump two is perfect. Jump three is too. On it goes 'till jump 10, the very last jump, and the highest. 4ft.  
  
My horse, Jet, and I clear it.  
  
I breathe a sigh of relief, and pat Jet. As we cross the finish line I look up at the cheering crowd, most of which are from my home barn. My heart stops. Is it her? It can't be. She's been dead for eight years. I feel my self-start losing my balance.  
  
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I sit up in bed, as soon as I start to fall. I have had that dream before, but now, since my mother has come back it comes more often. I remember that show, I remember falling, I remember my father telling me I couldn't ride any longer, and above all I remember seeing my mother.  
  
I had looked for hours, after I had fallen. But, my mother had disappeared. Years of appointments with shrinks later, I finally, admitted that the woman I saw wasn't my mother. Now, I'm not so sure.  
  
It's morning. I look out the window and the sun is just rising. I grab my cell phone and dial the number I know by heart.  
  
His sleepy voice answers. "Vaughn."  
  
"Hey it's me."  
  
I can hear the worry in his voice as he replies, "Syd, are you ok?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine. Could you arrange a meeting with mother for me? It's urgent."  
  
"Syd? Are you sure you're ok?"  
  
I smile at his genuine concern. "I'm fine."  
  
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A half hour later I have given a quarter to the man, looked at the video camera, and dialed the number in the phone. I walk in and Vaughn meets me.  
  
"Hey. What's up?"  
  
"Hey," He says.  
  
I can tell he's still worried.  
  
"Vaughn, I'm fine."  
  
He nods and I walk to my mother's "house."  
  
I get buzzed in and I don't even wait for her to face me. "You came back to the states when I was 14 years old. You came and watched me in my last horse show."  
  
She turns and all I see is her poker face, but in her eyes I see something more. Is that something pain, regret? That, I can't tell.  
  
Irina sits there. The woman who calls herself my mother just sits there.  
  
"Answer me! Godamnit!"  
  
I'm close to tears now. I'm so sure that it was she when I was 14.  
  
"You're father told me I could not tell you."  
  
"Cut the crap Derevko. He might have done that now. But, then?"  
  
Irina cut me off. "I wanted to see you. Your father was doing me a favor by even letting me see you, without turning me in."  
  
Irina looked defeated. She didn't look like the woman who had been in this cell since September; she didn't look like my mother, either. She was a foreign.  
  
All I could ask was, "why?"  
  
"Why what?" She asked. Though, I knew she knew what I was referring to.  
  
"Why did you come back?"  
  
"You don't know what it's like. You don't know what it's like to leave the family you've had. The husband and child you love. I may have been told to fabricate a life with you and your father, but sometimes the illusion of a family was just as strong for me as it was for you."  
  
I felt a tear rolling down my check. I had completely lost it.  
  
"You really wanted to see us?"  
  
"That friend of yours, Michael Vaughn, I don't think he's ever ridden a horse. You need to take him."  
  
Her infamous subject changes. God I hated them. Yet, she had kind of admitted coming back to see us. I put my hatred aside and humored her.  
  
"We can't be seen in public together."  
  
"I can arrange it so you won't be. Give me a notepad and a pen."  
  
I was starting to think I had taken humoring her to far. Yet, I handed the notepad pad and pen to her.  
  
Quickly she wrote down a number.  
  
"Ask for ext. 007."  
  
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That night I lay in bed staring at the paper. I could be a trick, that all could have been a lie. But, what did I have to lose. Uh. I don't know, my life, maybe? At that moment if brain wasn't so cluttered it probably would have ended there. Yet, the thought of Michael Vaughn in extremely tight Wranglers decided for me.  
  
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The next day, at Hidden Oaks Equestrian Center, I met Vaughn. He was doing the not allowed to look at Sydney in public thing and I laughed.  
  
"Vaughn, we're alone, you don't have to do that."  
  
He looked extremely skeptical.  
  
"I set it up."  
  
"Sydney, not that I am complaining, 'cause trust me, I'm not, but why?"  
  
I smiled. "You'll see."  
  
I led him to the first barn. There was a horse tacked up and ready to go.  
  
"I tacked him up for you."  
  
I got him out of the cross ties and handed him to Vaughn.  
  
"I'll be right out."  
  
In a bit I came out with my horse. He was an Appendix Quarter Horse, and looked almost exactly like Jet.  
  
"Sydney, I'm not sure about this." Giving Vaughn time by himself with a horse probably wasn't the best idea. "I've never ridden before."  
  
I smiled, "don't worry, you won't get hurt, I promise."  
  
Amazingly my comfort worked.  
  
He smiled. "Thank you, Sydney."  
  
At that we mounted our horses. We rode of into the sunset, like in any good romance novel.  
  
I had rediscovered my first love, horses, realized my second, Vaughn, and learned that maybe, my mother loved me and my father, not hated us. 


End file.
